We Showed Courage, Says Beaglehole

- Leicester City's Development Squad beat Dinamo Zagreb 2-1 at Holmes Park on Monday
- Senior Professional Development Phase Coach Steve Beaglehole was pleased with City's performance
- Beaglehole says the Club's youngsters showed courage to come back from a goal down in Whetstone
- The Foxes face Chelsea in Premier League 2 Division 1 at EBB Stadium on Friday (7pm kick-off)

Leon Šipoš put the Croatian visitors ahead early on at Holmes Park, but a brace from Callum Wright, either side of half-time, sealed a second Group A victory in the Premier League International Cup.

Despite the result not being enough to seal qualification into the quarter-finals, the Foxes went into the fixture knowing the scale of the task, and Beaglehole was nonetheless pleased with the performance.

"It's two great victories, Villarreal and tonight," he told LCFC TV. "They were an older side than us, more experienced. We had a young side out, a lot of changes, so I’m really, really pleased.

"I thought they showed a lot of courage and started to press better when we went behind. We didn’t have enough time to really work with the team.

"You think of the players that have left the team recently (on loan)… we missed the two lads in midfield, the two central midfield players, George Thomas and Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall.

"They have been excellent, top drawer. Then, we’ve gone in with two different ones (Wright and Khanya Leshabela) tonight and they’ve done really well." 

Beaglehole was also pleased with the degree of dominance City's youngsters enjoyed in the second half and credited the players for bouncing back following a defeat by Arsenal.

Gallery 27 Jan 2020

Leicester City U23s 2 Dinamo Zagreb U23s 1

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"In the second half, we dominated the game," he added. "We pressed better, we created a lot of chances, some really good chances, so we should have scored more goals.

"Overall, all of them made a really good contribution to the game. The young lad, Terell [Pennant], we said at half-time: ‘We’ve not brought you off because you’ve not played well’.

"We talked about him playing half a game, just drip-feeding him in, and Callum Hulme, his first game, you could tell he’s a bit off the pace, so we made the change.

"We got [Josh] Eppiah on for 45 minutes and I’m really pleased. To bounce back after a defeat, it’s the best thing you can do."

All times GMT.